I am not sure if you guys have heard about it but there is a LAN going down in Montreal this spring with TF2 as one of the tournament games. The event goes by the name of LAN ETS and the operators are offering $2000 for the top three finishers in the TF2 tournament. There will also be tournaments for CS:S, CS 1.6, COD4, Quake Live, DotA, NHL2010, and Guitar Hero. Lopert, a moderately well-known name in the competitive community, has suggested a map rotation for the event on their forums:

Je commence ce thread pour savoir quel maps vont etre jouer dans le tournoi de TF2. Pour donner une idée du standard, cet derniere saison de ESEA, la liste etait :

Semaine 1 - koth_viaduct
Semaine 2 - cp_follower
Semaine 3 - cp_freight
Semaine 4 - ctf_turbine
Semaine 5 - cp_badlands
Semaine 6 - cp_gravelpit
Semaine 7 - cp_yukon_final
Semaine 8 - cp_granary

Mon expérience me laisse l'impression que les maps en ordre de plus populaire à moins populaire est:
Top3 / Tier 1: cp_badlands, cp_granary, cp_gravelpit
Tier 2: ctf_turbine, cp_freight, koth_viacduct
Tier 3: cp_yukon_final, cp_follower

Donc ma question est, quel maps seront dans le tournoi de TF2?

En passant, si il y a qqn qui suggère 2fort, je vous étrippe

Of course if you can't speak French, you can probably only get the gist of what he's asking. Translation, courtesy of moi, below:

I will start a thread for discussion of which maps should be played in the TF2 tournament. To give an idea of the standard, aka the last season of ESEA, the list was:

Week 1 - koth_viaduct
Week 2 - cp_follower
Week 3 - cp_freight
Week 4 - ctf_turbine
Week 5 - cp_badlands
Week 6 - cp_gravelpit
Week 7 - cp_yukon_final
Week 8 - cp_granary

My experience leaves me with the impression that the maps, in order of the most popular to the least popular, are:
Top3 / Tier 1: cp_badlands, cp_granary, cp_gravelpit
Tier 2: ctf_turbine, cp_freight, koth_viacduct
Tier 3: cp_yukon_final, cp_follower

So my question is, what maps will be in the TF2 tournament?

Btw, if someone suggests 2fort, I will strangle you

So this event is on the same weekend as the ESEA-I LAN so we probably can't expect the very top teams to attend but the competitive community still needs to make a strong showing. It looks like there are only 3 teams signed up so far and they are looking for around 20. If you live in the area, you must attend this event and represent the competitive community. LANs are vital to the game's continued growth. If you are planning on attending, please contact me because I want someone to cover it for the site (along with the ESEA LAN).

I am proud to announce that Community Fortress will be holding a NorthWest Regional Championship Tournament at PDX Lan 15, which starts tomorrow! I will be organizing said tournament and can be contacted through my steam ID or at the LAN itself. Check out the PDX LAN official forums if you're going for discussion.

This is a bit spur of the moment but it is clear that the overall future of our communities, TF2 and eSports, depends upon real world events. Local competition and local presence are key to the progression of sponsor involvment and strenghthening our bonds as a community. I will be going into more depth on this argument in a future blog post.

Here is my vision for CommFT's NW Regional Championship: Crown a team as 6v6 Champion, giving them a mark of prestige, and hopefully some prizes, that they can use to market themselves. This is a title that is held until the next full PDX LAN (they do smaller 1/2 lans) and the title MUST be defended with at least 3 starting members of the previous team present. If the team can't send at least 3 members, the title is vacated and goes to the winner of the next tournament.

Not a whole lot of pre-planning has gone into this, but I think this is an important approach and is something that can be done at other major LANs. I'm sure that whoever wins this innaguaral championship won't be going on to beat Complexity anytime soon, but this is how great things happen. Teams need to be drawn to local LANs in order for a network of LAN competitions that mean something to be formed. In the future Community Fortress could crown East Coast champs at GXL, Mid-West champs at Chicago, or other smaller championships such as the NorthWest champs.